An Evaluation of the GAA Healthy Club Project September

‘Opening Gates, Breaking Stigmas’ An Evaluation of the GAA Healthy Club Project September 2015 Aoife Lane, Alex Donohoe and Niamh Murphy Centre for Health Behaviour Research, WIT This publication should be cited as: Lane, A., Donohoe, A., and Murphy, N (2015). An Evaluation of the GAA Healthy Club Project. Centre for Health Behaviour Research, WIT, Waterford, Ireland. Table of Contents Executive Summary 1 Background to the HCP 3 Research Questions 4 Methods 4 Overview of Participating Clubs 5 What was the process involved for clubs taking part in the HCP? 6 What was the impact of the HCP on club activities and the general community? 14 What initiatives were implemented as part of the HCP? 21 Key Learning – HCP Framework 37 Recommendations 38 References 41 Appendices 42 List of Abbreviations GAA Gaelic Athletic Association HSE Health Service Executive DoH Department of Health HCP Healthy Club Project Executive Summary The aim of the GAA Healthy Club Project (HCP) is, with the support of the HSE, to explore the potential of the GAA club as a setting in which to promote the health and wellbeing of club members and the wider community. Evaluation activity included pre and post engagement with participating clubs and communities, which included executive committee representatives, healthy club officers, club members, programme participants, and service providers. Main findings are presented below around the three main elements of the evaluation. HCP Process: • Participation in the HCP indicated the commitment of clubs to their community, while also helping them to remain relevant and competitive in evolving environments. • Community links and partnerships with service providers were key factors in operationalizing the HCP in clubs while challenges included funding, and a lack of capacity to roll out the project. Impact of the HCP: • Over the duration of the project membership numbers increased while there were also improvements in scoring on the overall health promotion orientation of clubs, and specific domains related to club policy, practice and the environment. • Club and community representatives remarked on the impact of participation in the HCP on the perception of the club, on attitudes to health, as well as on engagement with club activities and health behaviours. There was a firm acknowledgement of a place for health promotion in club activities at the end of the project. HCP Initiatives: • 72 initiatives were delivered across 7 target areas (physical activity, diet/nutrition, health awareness, emotional well-being, social inclusion, anti-bullying, smoking/alcohol and mostly delivered to the club and community. Ratings showed that almost 60% of the initiatives were deemed moderate impact, 36% low and the remaining 4% rated as high impact. • Case studies of initiatives revealed a positive impact on behaviour, and on the perception of participants on the club, while also demonstrating the value of partnerships with public health service providers, such as the HSE. The main recommendations for sports clubs, and for the next phase of the HCP include: 1. Governance • Develop a healthy club policy to position health on the working agenda of clubs. • Ensure representation of the healthy club team on the Executive Committee. • Develop an operational structure for the HCP to illustrate how health promotion is manifested in the club, including an outline of the policy and organisation of health promotion in the GAA, partnership networks, key target groups and programme options. 2. Partnership and Collaboration • A communication network within the GAA setting across club, county and provincial units should be established. 1 • Engagement with external stakeholder groups must be enhanced through integration of community representatives and interest groups, as well as key partners such as the HSE from the outset of project work. This requires: 3. Funding • Examples of good practice around funding in Phase I must be communicated but it is important also that some guidance is given to clubs about how best to tap into funding opportunities. • There have also been suggestions that the GAA could have a grant support system that reflects those available for capital projects. • There may also be potential in identifying community social responsibility partnership opportunities at a local level. Nationally, Irish Life have committed to the HCP so there is a precedent for this type of engagement. 4. Building Capacity • Links with third level or other agencies that may support community engagement, evaluation and funding applications should be explored in Phase II. • Training for officers is developed and priority must be given to clubs participating in Phase II. 5. Programmes • There are two considerations in relation to increasing the likelihood of delivering and recording impact on health due to the HCP; firstly, there needs to be consistency and adherence to best practice in the content of initiatives and secondly, this needs to led at national level by proposing a suite of initiatives for clubs. • Coaches and officials are the main conduit for messages to playing members so future HCP activity must consider development and roll out of initiatives specific to upskilling these individuals around promoting health among players. 6. Measuring Impact and Evaluation • The need to identify an isolated impact of the HCP on behaviour change or population health should be considered in Phase II, possibly through a more focused, controlled evaluation of programmes and more comprehensive community surveys. • A steering group should establish expectations and required outcomes for clubs taking part in Phase II. • Continued evaluation of the evolving governance model for health and wellbeing in the GAA should be supported, particularly how the HCP grows and exists across layers of health and wellbeing activity. 7. Resources • A complete toolkit that will help to ensure transparency from the outset of Phase II and initial informed commitment must be provided. The GAA HCP represents a novel way of carrying out health promotion in Ireland, and strikes a natural balance between the health agenda of the HSE and the core business of the GAA club. It reflects a meeting point between the ‘push of health’ and ‘pull of the club’. This pilot evaluation has provided support for this type of initiative in terms of the positive impact on the health orientation and practice of participating clubs. There is a clear commitment from the various layers in the GAA to support this work, which is fundamental to wider dissemination and integration into the daily workings of the organisation. 2 Background to the HCP The aim of the GAA Healthy Club Project (HCP) is to explore the potential of the GAA club as a setting in which to promote the health and wellbeing of club members and the wider community. The settings approach to health promotion is based on understanding, appreciating and working with, entities where individuals learn, work and live to positively impact health behaviours. A relatively new setting under investigation is the sports club, which exists primarily to promote sport and thus is involved in promoting physical activity (PA) but not always in a health enhancing way. Therefore, as well as using sports clubs to promote sport by ensuring a greater and more active membership there is potential to promote health more broadly in the club and its associated community. In 2010, the Healthy Sporting Environments Demonstration Project (HSEDP) was implemented in 100 sports clubs in Australia to guide healthy practice for sports clubs. Evaluation indicated that while clubs took some positive steps in relation to institutional change there was little impact on health behaviours over a two-year period but this may take some time to manifest (Nicholson et al., 2013). In Europe, Sports Club for Health Guidelines have been developed (Kokko et al., 2011) to help clubs engage in health promotion but have not yet been evaluated. There have also been some examples of effective ‘sports for health’ interventions. An evaluation of the ‘Good Sports’ alcohol programme in Australia showed more positive drinking patterns, lower reliance on alcohol sponsorship for income and greater membership at follow up (Crundall, 2012) while in Scotland, the Football Fans in Training (FFIT) programme, delivered through professional soccer clubs, has reported significant reductions in weight, self-reported physical activity, alcohol intake and measures of physical and psychological wellbeing (Hunt et al., 2014). The GAA HCP represents a relatively unique attempt by a national governing body to formally integrate health promotion into the activities and ethos of clubs. This initiative led by the GAA and HSE will serve to harness current as well as encourage and facilitate more health promotion activity within a GAA club setting. The GAA had, since 2006, experience in the delivery of health promotion activities through its Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention (ASAP) Programme, which was delivered in partnership with the HSE with the salary of a National Coordinator provided for through a Service Level Agreement (resources developed include a Club Drug & Alcohol policy template, a manual, an educational DVD, promotional materials, and a presence on the GAA’s national website). By 2012 both the GAA and the HSE recognised that focusing on a singular health topic did not adequately respond to the broad and varied health needs of the Association’s membership base, or reflect the degree of health

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